With Help, Chinese Artist Will Contest a Tax BillBy SHARON LaFRANIERE
Published: November 11, 2011
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DiggRedditTumblrPermalink. BEIJING — Ai Weiwei, the artist and political dissident, has decided to contest an unpaid tax assessment of about $2.4 million that is due on Tuesday, and he will use donations from thousands of Chinese supporters for the appeal, Mr. Ai’s wife said Friday.

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Ng Han Guan/Associated Press
Ai Weiwei at his home in Beijing on Tuesday.
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.Mr. Ai’s wife, Lu Qing, said he would post a guarantee of half the tax bill to be allowed to contest the order to pay it. “We demand the case be reopened because all procedures were wrong and most were illegal,” Ms. Lu said in a telephone interview, referring to the lengthy investigation of her husband.

One of China’s most famous artists, Mr. Ai was detained in April and held for 81 days at a secret location. There, he said, questioners interrogated him about his activism, not about his finances. The government later announced that he was guilty of tax evasion and gave him until Nov. 15 to pay the back taxes it said he owed, plus large penalties.

Mr. Ai’s 80-year-old mother, Gao Ying, the widow of one China’s best-loved poets, said last week that she would mortgage her home to help her son meet the government’s demands. “If he can’t pay it, then he’ll be taken in,” she told Human Rights in China, according to an e-mail from that organization, which has offices in New York and Hong Kong. She said she had removed a photograph of President Hu Jintao from her home in protest. “I have these words for the authorities: creepy, crooked, evil,” she said.

In the two weeks since the government delivered the tax bill, tens of thousands of people have contributed more than $1 million to help Mr. Ai pay it. His wife said the couple considered the donations to be loans and would repay them.

Asked what would happen if the appeal failed, Ms. Lu said: “We will think about that then. Step by step.”

Mia Li contributed research.